Police refused to release intersection camera footage after a crash

Attorney Answer

The police can often lawfully refuse a public records request for crash footage, so the realistic path is different: ask in writing, right away, that the footage be preserved; get the collision report, which you are entitled to; and, if there is a lawsuit, subpoena the video. Footage is often overwritten automatically, so the preservation request should go out now to every agency or business that might hold it.

The records request. Under the California Public Records Act, an agency must answer in writing. Cal. Gov't Code § 7922.535(a):

(a) Each agency, upon a request for a copy of records, shall, within 10 days from receipt of the request, determine whether the request, in whole or in part, seeks copies of disclosable public records in the possession of the agency and shall promptly notify the person making the request of the determination and the reasons therefor.

The time can be extended by up to 14 days in unusual circumstances. But the Act does not require police to release records of their investigations: Cal. Gov't Code § 7923.600(a) exempts records of investigations conducted by police agencies and their investigatory files. The Supreme Court of California held in Haynie v. Superior Court, 26 Cal. 4th 1061 (2001), that this covers inquiries into whether a violation of law occurred, and into the circumstances of one detected, but not everything officers do. Footage the police gathered while investigating your crash can usually be withheld; video recorded routinely, and not as part of an investigation, may stand differently. A separate section, Cal. Gov't Code § 7923.605, requires police to release some information about an incident to the people involved, but only for incidents caused by certain crimes, and video is not on its list.

If it is a red-light camera. Cal. Veh. Code § 21455.5(f)(1):

(f) (1) Notwithstanding Article 1 (commencing with Section 7922.500) and Article 2 (commencing with Section 7922.525) of Chapter 1 of Part 3 of Division 10 of Title 1 of the Government Code, or any other law, photographic records made by an automated traffic enforcement system shall be confidential, and shall be made available only to governmental agencies and law enforcement agencies and only for the purposes of this article.

Those records are kept for up to six months, or until any citation is resolved if that is later, and then must be destroyed (§ 21455.5(f)(3)).

What you are entitled to: the report. Cal. Veh. Code § 20012 requires the police agency to “disclose the entire contents of the reports” to the drivers involved, injured people, owners of damaged property and their attorneys. That is the collision report, not video.

Preserving the footage. A city department may destroy routine video after one year, but must keep recordings that are evidence in a claim or lawsuit. Cal. Gov't Code § 34090.6(a):

(a) Notwithstanding the provisions of Section 34090, the head of a department of a city or city and county, after one year, may destroy recordings of routine video monitoring, and after 100 days may destroy recordings of telephone and radio communications maintained by the department. This destruction shall be approved by the legislative body and the written consent of the agency attorney shall be obtained. In the event that the recordings are evidence in any claim filed or any pending litigation, they shall be preserved until pending litigation is resolved.

That section covers city departments, and nothing in it requires a city to keep footage for a full year. In litigation, the protection for routine loss of electronic information (Cal. Code Civ. Proc. § 2023.030(f)) has a limit: in Victor Valley Union High School Dist. v. Superior Court, 91 Cal. App. 5th 1121 (2023), the Court of Appeal held that it does not shield a party already under a duty to preserve, and that the duty arises when litigation is reasonably foreseeable, which can be before any claim or suit is filed. That case involved a school district; whether an agency's routine overwriting of traffic video is covered depends on its own facts. A written preservation request does not settle that question, but it creates a record of what you asked for and when.

Once a lawsuit is filed. A subpoena can require an agency to produce electronically stored information such as video (Cal. Code Civ. Proc. § 1985(a)), and a records-only deposition subpoena does not need the affidavit of good cause that a trial subpoena needs (§ 2020.410(c)). An agency can still object, and a court decides.

What you can do

1. Today, send a written request to the police department, and to the city or county traffic department, asking them to preserve all video of the intersection for the time of the crash; keep copies.

2. Send the same request to any nearby business whose cameras face the intersection.

3. Ask the police department for the collision report as a person involved in the crash.

4. Keep the agency's written response to your records request; it must give the reasons for a denial.

5. Write down where the camera is and which way it faces.

6. Ask your insurer whether it has requested the footage.

7. Most lawyers offer a brief initial call at no cost, and a few minutes on your specific facts is worth more than any general guidance, including this page.

⏱ Time limits apply. For the crash itself, Cal. Code Civ. Proc. § 335.1 allows two years to sue for an injury and § 338(c)(1) three years for damage to a vehicle, and a claim against a public agency, if one was involved in the crash, must be presented within six months (Cal. Gov't Code § 911.2). Have a lawyer confirm which applies rather than counting it yourself.